Shieldmaid to the Core
by Halethwyn
Summary: Astrid has always been the perfect Viking. But how she captured Hiccup's heart and turned herself into a shieldmaid everyone relies on and no one really knows is a story only time can tell. A series of vignettes centered on Astrid from age 6 to just post HtTYD2.
1. The Little Valkyrie

**The Little Valkyrie**

* * *

Hiccup Haddock was pretty much the opposite of a light sleeper, but even he could not sleep through this dragon raid. It was well past midnight, and his tiny, scrawny five-year-old frame was shivering from a combination of exhaustion and fear. He had been dragged outside by his father mere minutes ago and shoved into a circle of other children, who were guarded by a few adults in full armor. Being outside during a raid was somewhat less dangerous, because it gave the Vikings room to maneuver and no roofs could collapse into burning rubble on their heads.

Hiccup strained and squirmed his way to the edge of the tightly packed gang of kids who were all under the age of eleven and too small to help in the fighting. He wanted to see what kind of dragons were attacking, and how his dad was crushing them. His dad always beat the invading creatures. It was a large part of what made him Hiccup's hero.

"Watch the spines! He's outta fire!" came the bull-like bellow from his huge father as he swung his heavy warhammer at a Nadder's head. Calmly, he swatted aside a poisoned spine with his wrist bracer and repeated the blow, dazing the dragon until someone - Hiccup thought it might be his uncle Spitelout - plunged a sword into the dragon's neck and ended that threat.

"Stoick! Zipplebacks 'ave got into the chickens!" a man cried out from the bottom of the hill on which the village was built.

The chief grunted in response. "Come on! Protect the foodstores!" Rallying everyone around him that he could, he led the charge down the hill towards the rising cloud of noxious green gas.

Hiccup was frightened by dragons, of course, but never when his father was around. And now his father was gone. He began shaking like a leaf at the edge of the herd of children. He tried to tell himself to stop, that his father would be ashamed of a scared Viking, but he couldn't help it. At last, on instinct, he threw himself between two of the guards and followed his father's path into the thick of battle. It was just bad luck that he was so small none of the guards noticed.

It took him a lot of terrified stumbling, but he made it down the path into the village square. He still couldn't see his father in all the gas and smoke, but he could hear him barking out commands and grunting as a few particularly vicious dragons landed hits. Hiccup coughed as he caught a whiff of the acrid Zippleback gas and instinctively put his left arm and sleeve over his mouth. Somewhere close, a menacing hiss went unnoticed. "Dad! Where are you?" Hiccup called in as manly a shriek as possible. He had to get back to his dad. He would be safe there. He was always safe there.

From his blind side where his arm obscured his vision, a brown and green Terrible Terror suddenly sprung out of the shadows and sunk its sharp teeth into his left leg. Hiccup screamed in fright and pain, trying to shake it off and only making it latch on harder. The wicked creature practically grinned at him as the little boy's eyes filled with tears.

"Get off!" came a sharp feminine shriek. Small but capable hands swung the broken handle of a spear at the head of the Terror and hit it dead between the eyes. As the horrible burning teeth pulled out of his leg to attack this new threat, Hiccup fell to the ground and looked up at his rescuer. It was Astrid Hofferson, an almost-grownup at six years old - he was barely five - and she was now facing down the Terror with her eyes blazing and her tongue sticking out of her mouth in determination. She was too small to carry a shield, but she used the broken oak shaft to great advantage. When the Terror tried to bite her ankle too, she clubbed it in the eye, making it hiss in pain. It changed tactics and spat a short burst of sparking flames at her, but she spun around the shot like she was dancing. She jabbed the creature in the side of the stomach while it was breathing in for another try and the Terror hissed in pain. After four more tries at breaking through the nimble girl's defenses, it gave up and flew away towards the main fighting.

Astrid crowed in triumph and spun in a circle, holding her makeshift weapon high. Hiccup, still in pain and lying on the ground clutching his leg, had barely registered her victory, but he still managed to look up as her short blonde hair caught the light of the fires and made a golden halo around her freckled face. He still hurt, but he wasn't afraid anymore. If he couldn't find his father, at least he was safe with Astrid.

She paused in her dance when she saw him and her blue-grey eyes softened. She dropped to her knees next to him and enveloped him in a hug. "Shh, shh; it's okay," she said in a soothing imitation of a grownup. "It's okay, Hiccup. I got you." Gently, she lifted the hurt leg into her lap and slid the pant leg up to his knee, revealing the toothmarks. Her little brow furrowed in intense concentration and she stuck her tongue out again. "I'll be right back, okay?" she told him, sliding his leg to the ground.

Hiccup whimpered an incoherent protest. If she left, he would be scared again, would feel alone again. That, and the pain was growing worse every second.

She shook her finger scoldingly. "I promise I'll be right back. Be brave." She leaped to her feet and ran off into the blinding mix of flickering light and shadow.

The minutes without her were agony. He was alone in the street and the fighting seemed to have moved towards the docks, but there were still people rushing back and forth with buckets to put out fires and fight the odd dragon straggler. No one noticed him, tucked against the side of a partially-crushed house, trying his best to be brave and not cry. For a long, terrible moment, he was sure she was not coming back. She had gone forever and he couldn't find his father, he was going to _die_ from this awful pain, and _no one cared_.

"Alright, I got a bandage for it, but first we have to wash it out."

He looked up through blurry tears to see her kneeling next to him again, looking very solid and real and matter-of-fact, as if she patched up little boys every day. She squeezed his hand in sympathy. "It'll hurt a little, but I promise it's okay." She dumped the contents of a waterskin over his leg and the fiery pain increased tenfold. He gripped her hand like a vice and ground his teeth, desperate to keep his shriek inside. If she could be brave he would be too.

When the liquid had mostly dripped away, Astrid began rolling clean white fabric around the bite until it was all covered in the soothing bandage. "There, see?" she smiled brightly at him. "I told you it's okay."

He nodded slowly. He wanted another hug, but he wasn't sure if it was babyish to ask for one when he was clearly fine, and not dying anymore. He wanted more than anything not to look babyish in front of Astrid.

Fortunately, she did something better. Bending down like it was a ritual, she kissed the outside of the bandage. "Now you can get up. Come on." She practically pulled him to his feet, but he did not resist. Standing hurt, but she slipped his left arm over her shoulder, stooping to match his height, and helped him limp away.

When the raid was over and his father came looking for him, Stoick found Hiccup propped against the wheel of a cart nursing his dressed wound while a proud little Valkyrie stood watch over him. Some claimed that it was mere luck that she had poured ale over his leg instead of water and burned the infection away, but Hiccup always knew that Astrid had known exactly what she was doing. And from that day on, there were two people on the island of Berk that could make him feel safe.


	2. Stand Up

**Secrets of Midguard** and guest, thanks so much for your reviews! I do intend to keep this series going; I have planned at least eleven "tableaux", so to speak, ranging from Astrid at age 6 to 21.

* * *

 **Stand Up**

* * *

The Vikings of Berk, as a general rule, were not very patient people. They knew their routines and jobs - after all, their village had existed for more than seven generations - and they disliked anything that slowed down or impeded them. And that background impatience could easily be exacerbated by clumsiness or incessant curiosity or nonconformity. Unfortunately for Hiccup, even at age seven, he had already proven himself to possess all three of these traits in spades. No one complained in front of Stoick, but the boy's constant questions and rampant klutziness made him rather the opposite of the village's favorite son. That title belonged to Snotlout, Hiccup's cousin. As far as the teenagers and adults were concerned, Snotlout was loud, big for his age, strong, and stubborn. That was everything that made a good Viking and nothing else. Astrid strongly disagreed.

First, Snotlout was a Jorgenson. His tribe and hers, the Hoffersons, had been quietly feuding for time out of mind. That had been made a thousand times worse when her uncle, Fearless Finn, had been killed by the Flightmare dragon three years ago. Overnight, Vikings began calling him _Frozen_ Finn, and Astrid knew it was the Jorgensons who had started it. Second, Snotlout liked nothing better than teaming up with the silly, dirty, crazy Thorston twins and picking on people or animals who were smaller than him.

Case in point, as Astrid rounded the corner of the biggest sheep pen on the far side of the village, she saw the three bullies laughing as Snotlout shoved Hiccup into a patch of what she hoped was mud. The smaller boy's spindly limbs waved wildly as he fell, like a turtle that couldn't right itself. This only made his tormentors laugh harder.

"Aw, poor Hic!" Tuffnut chortled. "Awe you huwt, poor baby? Did you fall down, go boom?" As Hiccup struggled to his feet, Tuffnut simply pushed him back in.

"If I'm the baby, how come you're the one who can't talk?" Hiccup retorted. His words were brave, but his tone revealed that he wanted to cry.

"You think you're so smart, don't you, runt?" Snotlout jeered, kicking more of the black-brown dirt in his cousin's face. "You're not. If you were, your dad would be proud of you, like mine is."

Hiccup's face under all the muck went pale with anger and shame. Astrid's face, on the other hand, went the shade of a Monstrous Nightmare on fire. "Leave him alone!" she screamed, rushing up and putting her hands on her hips defiantly.

"Oh, look; it's a Frozen Hofferson!" Ruffnut yelled in mock terror. "Run for your lives!"

Snotlout folded his big arms across his thick chest. "Whatcha gonna do, Hofferson? Cry like a baby?"

"Why don't you put your muscle where your mouth is, you slobbering, mangy, barnacle-eating half-troll?" she taunted, slyly slipping her right foot into a ready stance. If there was one thing Astrid was talented at, it was insults. She had heard a lot of them in the past three years, and unlike Hiccup, her father's standing in the community did nothing to protect her from them.

"Get her, Snot!" Tuffnut urged, bending down to rub more "dirt" into Hiccup's hair as he watched.

"Yeah, get the little runt!" Ruffnut agreed.

"I can pin her with one arm," Snotlout boasted.

Astrid frowned sharply. "So do it, you greasy Saxon pig!"

At that, Snotlout launched himself at her. While they were both eight years old, Snotlout already towered over her and was at least twenty pounds heavier. Everyone expected her to go down hard. Hiccup closed his eyes. Astrid bit her tongue in disappointment. Even he expected her to lose. _Well, I'll show them all!_ she decided.

Snotlout's first charge was easy to dance away from; she spun to the left and laughed. "Missed!" Growling like a bear, he got up and tried to pounce on her, but she ducked under his grip and landed a short, sharp punch on his stomach as she waltzed past.

"Hey, no fair, Astrid!" Ruffnut whined. "You're not fighting like a Viking!" She and her brother were using Hiccup as a (very bony) bench to sit on.

"Yeah! Man up and grapple!" Tuffnut added, earning him a hard knock from his twin on his forehead. "I mean, uh, _wo_ -man up?"

Astrid stuck out her tongue at the twins as she somersaulted away from another grab. "I _am_ a Viking, so this is how we fight!" she yelled.

Truly frustrated at being unable to catch her, Snotlout tried to trip her as she ran past, but she jumped over his foot and used his moment of poor balance to hook her own foot around his other ankle. He went down hard on the wet ground and she sprang onto him, digging her knees into his chest and giving him a savage punch in the face. _That'll bruise later,_ she thought proudly.

"Give up!" she demanded, holding her fist above his other eye.

Ordinarily, Snotlout was not a coward. But being beaten up by a tiny slip of a girl who moved like a sharp class dragon and had the tongue of an old barmaid was not an experience life had prepared him for. "Okay, okay! Get off me!" he cringed.

"Get lost," she replied with extreme contempt, kicking him in the ribs as she got up. The twins stood up silently from their makeshift seat and stared at the blonde. "Did she just-" "What just happened?" they asked each other so quickly that it was impossible to determine who said what.

Astrid dropped back into her ready stance, grinning. "You want some, you cowardly idiot spoiled yak custards?"

They shook their heads rapidly, and somehow in perfect synchronization.

"Then go back to your mama," she spat. "Unless she finally tells you you're actually adopted snot-faced Norns."

Behind her, Snotlout had gotten to his feet, and the shame of losing had penetrated his thick skull. He lunged at her from behind and she only managed to turn halfway before he knocked her to the ground sharply, all of his weight keeping her down. "Ha! _Now_ who's the man?" he cried proudly.

Astrid, inwardly berating herself for letting her guard down, wriggled her right leg free enough to deliver a hard half-kick, kneeing Snotlout in the groin. He crumpled up in pain and she rolled with his motion to get out from under him.

"Not fair! Not fair!" he whimpered in a very un-Snotlout tone.

She stuck her chin out proudly as she got to her feet. "I only fight dirty against worthless, sickly, fat, stupid dragon hatchlings like you." She pointed to the village. "Get out of here, all of you!"

They did not disobey a second time, and she was careful to keep all three enemies in her sight lines until they disappeared back into the town. _Never making that mistake again,_ she told herself. She turned as Hiccup wearily pulled himself out of the mud pit. He looked like some kind of spindly slime monster; he was covered from head to boot in the nasty stuff. "You okay?" she asked in a much gentler voice.

Hiccup blinked. "Oh, no, no, I'm good. Yeah, I love getting a bath in a nice mix of mud, sheep dung, and fresh grass."

Astrid rolled her eyes. "You shouldn't let them pick on you, Hiccup."

He stared at her for a moment. "You're right; totally my fault. What was I thinking?"

"Ugh," she groaned. "Do you want help or not?"

He glanced down at himself, then back up at her, and for the first time, she saw his lip quiver a little. She relaxed. Bravado was something she understood. He had to be sarcastic and mean or he'd cry. "Well, if you're offering," he quipped.

"Then come on. I know where my mom keeps the soap." She turned and started walking towards her house, going slowly enough that he could keep up. "You know," she said after a minute, "I'm just as small as you." The words hung between them in the air for a minute as he processed them. Astrid shot him a small smile, trying to make him understand.

"That doesn't mean I'm like you," he replied in a quiet voice.

"No," she agreed. "But it _does_ mean you can fight back. You gotta stand up for yourself. They won't leave you alone until you do."

She was facing forward, eyes peeled for a return of Snoutlout and the twins. So she missed the sideways look of glowing admiration from the dirty boy next to her.


	3. Daddy's Little Spitfire

To my guest reviewers: thank you both for your kind words. Jimmix, I promise you more updates. Secrets of Midguard, I have always felt that Hiccup had to have a reason for liking Astrid beyond "she's one of two teenage girls on the island and she's prettier". He's too smart and too deep to fall in love with her looks. Besides, if Astrid weren't an actually good person, **I** wouldn't like her!

First, I apologize for the long gap in updates. Finals and then a new job are my excuses. Second, I have been reliably informed by a French friend that I used the wrong word for these short glimpses of Astrid's life; apparently, these are not _tableaux_ , but _vignettes_. You learn something new every day.

* * *

 **Daddy's Little Spitfire**

* * *

"One more time, dad? Please?"

Arvid Hofferson chuckled. "Astrid, ye've already done the course three times today!"

"But my last run, I tripped on that root and it threw off my time!" she replied, cracking her knuckles determinedly. "Just one more; then we'll go home."

He nodded. "Remember, lass, it's not all about speed. Ye've got to move like water - find the natural path."

She nodded firmly and stepped up the the starting line of the practice course she and her father had rigged to prepare her for the Thawfest Games. In all her eleven years of life, she had never yet won, and she was determined that this would be her year. Winning would mean earning respect from everyone on Berk (even those rotten Jorgensons), getting a pouch of money to buy real armor with, and most importantly, making her father proud. Astrid was the youngest of seven siblings, and the only daughter to survive past the age of ten. Her two older brothers had already finished dragon training and were beginning lives of their own. Her parents had no one at home except her now, and she was determined to restore the Hofferson clan to all its shining glory for them.

"Ready?" Arvid asked. "Go!"

Astrid took off, trying to concentrate not just on running, but on running fluidly. Her father, a strong and beefy Viking himself, had always told her that since she was not big, she had to rely on speed and flexibility. She remembered when she was little how she had stolen his axe and tried to practice with it, only to end up dropping it on her foot and breaking two toes. Her dad had neither scolded her nor laughed; he bandaged the toes gently and offered to teach her to fight like he had taught her brothers. The next week, he went to Gobber, the clan blacksmith, and commissioned her seventh birthday present - a perfect, tiny, double-headed axe of her own. She had almost cried with disappointment over how small and light it was.

 _"You said you'd teach me just like you taught Argin and Bjorn!"_ she had complained.

 _"Ach, don't whine, lass! No, not just like them,"_ her father had corrected patiently. _"Can ye teach a sheep to do tricks the same way ye can a dog? Can ye mold stone the way ye can bread dough? Ye're not built like ye'r brothers, so ye must learn a little differently. But ye can learn."_

No one else had ever said that to her, before or since, not even her beloved Uncle Finn. No one else had ever told her she could be anything other than a small, weak, disgraced Hofferson _female_. But her father had believed in her, and trained her, and spent countless hours helping her develop the beginnings of a real fighting style. And all Astrid wanted in this life was to make him proud of her.

She moved like Thor's own lightning along the course, dodging stumps and boulders and logs and spinning around branches roughly carved to resemble the swinging axes that would line the real race. She focused on using her size and weight to her advantage. She couldn't knock things down, but she _could_ slip away or between or under. She couldn't bash rocks with her head, but she _could_ handspring over them. She couldn't make the ground tremble when she walked, but she _could_ , apparently, run the course flawlessly and in record time.

"Haha! _That's_ my lass!" Arvid yelled delightedly. His big blond beard covered his broad smile, but Astrid could see the pride shining in his blue eyes. She grinned back, the happiest girl in the Archipelago.

"Ye run like that in the Thawfest races, and ye'll have that slimy Snotlout beggin' fer mercy," he laughed, slapping her on the shoulder. It hurt and knocked her sideways a few inches, but she couldn't have cared less. It was the same slap of comradery he gave her brothers after a successful hunt. "Now," he continued, "how's about gettin' home fer supper? Or are ye not yet satisfied?"

She shook her head and began to notice how winded she was. "That was… good enough. Let's get some food."

"Fine, but none of ye'r cooking!" he teased. "An axe is a fine friend in battle, but by Thor, it makes a bloody mess in the kitchen!"

"Whatever, dad." She laughed along with him as they walked home and discussed how she would train tomorrow.

* * *

Astrid felt as if her heart was simultaneously dropping into her toes and burning its way out of her chest. _He cheated! That lowlife, mud-faced, sheep-stupid, troll-ugly, half-grown, chicken-livered Outcast thug cheated!_ She glared fiercely at Snotlout Jorgenson, who stood - no, paraded himself - in the winner's circle. The Thawfest Games had come and gone for another year, and the son of Spitelout was once again the winner. No one had been able to see that he had tripped Astrid up at a crucial moment during the race through the woods… or that Ruffnut and Tuffnut seemed to have decided that every single contest was a chance to mess her up on purpose. Did those unwashed blobs of idiocy actually like ticking her off?! She had tried desperately to regain her lost ground in each event, but Snotlout had won them all. She was second place in everything.

"You were really good out there," a nasally voice cut through her fuming thoughts.

"Huh?" she replied, unable to locate the source of the voice. She had to turn around and look down to see Hiccup. He was even smaller and spindlier than she was and had placed last in every event. She quickly did a recall of his performance and decided that he had been trying hard the whole time, but with no technique or skill, his size had only worked against him. "Oh. Thanks."

He dropped his gaze to his feet shyly and kicked at the grass. "Look, he… Everyone knows you're going to be a better warrior than Snotlout could ever be. You don't have to win to prove that."

She snorted in disappointment. "Yes, I do. But they'll see. Someday, I'm gonna be the best fighter and runner and warrior on Berk. On anywhere! They'll see."

Hiccup shrugged. "Only if they can tear their eyes away from Snot's 'rippling biceps'," he replied sarcastically, making finger quotes to indicate he was repeating something his cousin had said. She met his gaze for a long second before she saw the whimsical humor in his eyes and she laughed a little. He snickered too. "Well, better go swallow my pride for another year," he joked. Slipping through the gaps in the massive crowd of men cheering for Snotlout, he found a moment to congratulate his cousin. There was only a hint of patient martyrdom in his face.

Astrid watched in a mix of disgust and approval. On the one hand, inflating a Jorgenson's head any further than nature had made it was totally beyond the bounds of sanity. On the other, it was admittedly the decent thing to do. She tried to go over and say "good job" or "nice race" or even just "I'll see you next year". But she couldn't. It would be too humiliating. _I guess even Hiccup's better than me at something,_ she thought bitterly. Still, she couldn't help shooting the chief's son a weak smile. He grinned back widely.

"Astrid!"

Reluctantly, she turned to face her father as he barreled across the field towards her. To her surprise, he scooped her up in his arms and gave her a bear hug that squashed the air out of her lungs.

"I'm so proud of ye, lass." She felt the words rumble up from his chest like a drum. Ashamed, she buried her face in his shoulder and blinked hard to keep from crying. Only weak people cried.

"But I… I lost," she blurted out.

Arvid pulled away just enough to see her. With one hand, he gently tilted her chin so she had to look him in the eyes. "Astrid, lass, don't ye know I'm proud of ye no matter what? Ye've got five times the talent of any other Viking here, and just because they can't see that yet don't mean I can't. Even if ye'd come in dead last, I'd be prouder'n a dragon with a horde o' jewels. Ye gave it ye'r best, and ye fought honorably. That's worth more than any prize." He nodded to where Snotlout was receiving a pewter cup with two small boar tusks mounted on either side like handles, and a pouch of copper coins. "There's more to fightin' than just how ye move or what weapon ye carry. A Viking without honor is like an axe with a rotten handle - useless and good fer nothin' but the garbage heap."

Astrid processed her father's words, biting her tongue thoughtfully. "Dad?"

"Yes, lass?"

"I'm proud to be a Hofferson."

He hugged her again. "So'm I." After a long moment, he set her down, and added, "Now, none of that's to say ye shouldn't destroy that Jorgenson hog next year."

Astrid grinned like a dragon, already plotting her revenge. She would need to train harder and longer, but she could beat him. As long as her dad believed in her, she could take on the world.


	4. Boys Are Definitely Stupid

Guest reviewer: thank you for your kind words. I am very happy to be able to say that Astrid's father is based very much on my own. If my own dad were a Viking in a semi-imagined era of history.

Warning: bloody noses and weird Viking behavior ahead. Astrid is no fainting female. Also, miscarriage and emotional scarring, although without any gory details. Grab your Puffs.

* * *

 **Boys Are Definitely Stupid**

* * *

Astrid had never thought she would ever _want_ Snotlout to insult her. But now that she knew what the alternative was, she would gladly have gone back to their mutual animosity.

"Wow. I could watch you alllll day, babe."

She snorted in disgust and annoyance, looking down and left at the heir of the Jorgensons. "Go away." She pulled herself up again into a perfect, smooth chin-up, using the frame of the back door of her family's longhouse as a bar.

"Aw, playing hard to get! That is so you!" he replied, grinning obliviously.

She dropped to the ground and straightened up. At thirteen years old, she had finally gotten taller than he, and she rubbed it in every chance she got. Unfortunately, his new "crush" on her meant that he no longer reacted to her insults or jabs. Apparently, in Snotlout's mind she was crazy about him, and not all the years of familial and personal feuding could convince him otherwise.

"Listen up, 'cause I'm only going to say this one more time," she ground out between her teeth. "Come within ten arm lengths of me, and I will flatten you."

"You're pretty when you're mad," he droned. His voice, Astrid thought, resembled the scrape of a washboard crossed with a yak lowing. There was only so much a girl could take.

"That's it!" she spat. A moment later, she had tackled him like a dragon pouncing on a sheep and was using her fists on his stomach and face repeatedly. Fortunately for him, Snotlout was both wearing a leather jerkin and somewhat decent at wrestling. He certainly couldn't best her, but he could take a punch and dodge a few of her harder jabs. Unfortunately, however skilled his arms were at fighting, his brain was still completely inept at communication.

"You're falling for me, I can tell. You don't hit as hard as you used to."

That was absolutely the wrong thing to say to an already-enraged Hofferson. Astrid delivered two perfect hits to his nose and heard a satisfying _crunch_ of bone breaking. Blood shot out from his nostrils and the stupid happiness leeched from his expression, replaced by blooming pain.

"See, _that_ was a decent hit," he managed to say in a manly voice. Despite all his flaws, Snotlout was no coward and handled pain well. That said, he did make an effort to roll away and gingerly cradled his nose with one hand.

Astrid backed off and allowed him to get to his feet. She wiped his blood off her knuckles onto the metal skulls adorning her belt. She had asked for something that showed she was a deadly fighter for Snoggletog last year, and her father had had the belt made by Gobber. She liked the intimidating look it gave her and she wore it constantly over her tunics and short dresses. Now it also bore a stain that was a trophy of her fight.

"Go wash off," she ordered. "Next time I won't be so nice."

He hesitated, still holding his nose, and spoke in a half-lisp because of his injury. "My dad thays violenthe ith a thign of love from a Viking."

" _My_ dad," she replied haughtily, crossing her arms, "says that violence is the best defense against stupidity." She wanted him to leave, but she refused to walk away. This was her family's property, and her home turf. He would have to back off, not her.

Whether because his nose really did hurt and needed to be set, or because he wanted to ask his dad about what female Vikings really meant when they used violence, he nodded to her semi-respectfully and ran off. He was headed, she noticed with a smirk, in the general direction of the Goethi's hut; no doubt the village would shortly hear a sharp cry of agony as the old healer and wisewoman set the bridge of his nose.

"Good," she crowed, chalking another point for herself on her mental scoreboard. His ridiculous crush had started about a year ago, and the tally was now Astrid: 17, Snotlout: 4. And one of those victories had been an entirely accidental slip in the Great Hall that left her covered in mutton, sauce, and weak ale. She hadn't really deemed that worth roughing him up over. Thor knew she had tolerated quite a lot of spills and mishaps whenever Hiccup was around her.

 _But it's different,_ she argued with herself mentally, going inside her longhouse for dagmál, the morning meal. _Hiccup's my friend. When he trips, I know he's not trying to get my attention. He's just a silly klutz._ Though she had attempted to teach him self-defense over the years, he still acted like his fingers were made of warmed yak fat, and his limbs were uncooked sausages - all floppy and slippery. Eventually, she had just given up and only engaged him in mental combat. He was smart, maybe even smarter than that cowardly Fishlegs, and she liked having someone her own age to discuss things like dragon hunting and the old eddas.

As she shut the wooden door behind her, the hinges creaked slightly. This was the longest she remembered a family house lasting - more than three years - and usually the hinges didn't have a chance to get rusty before a dragon blasted the house with flames. But the squeaking hinge was not enough to cover the sound of someone sobbing quietly in the corner.

Astrid frowned sharply. She could count on one hand the number of times she had ever seen her father cry, and her mother wasn't much more free with her tears than he was. What was going on? "Mom?" she called softly, her eyes adjusting to the relative darkness of the windowless house.

"Asta." Her mother choked out an endearment she had not used in years, not since her daughter had declared herself too tough for nicknames. "I'm sorry… I…" Yvla Hofferson cut herself off with another shaky sob. "I need your father, love."

Astrid stiffened, a horrible gnawing fear suddenly filling her stomach. Her voice, to her surprise, was steady and calm. "Is it the baby?"

In the dim light of the dying fire, she saw her mother nod. "It's… She's stillborn." And four months early. Her mother had been so hopeful for one last child, a little sibling for Astrid, and a solace for the four other babes who had all died young. Her father had been overjoyed when Yvla told him; their twin sons Argin and Bjorn had given their parents charms blessed by the Goethi to keep the baby safe. Everyone in her family had been so happy to welcome a new member of the Hofferson clan and the utterly broken look on her mother's face made Astrid's heart wrench.

Slowly, she approached Yvla and saw that she had already cleaned the tiny body and readied it for a proper funeral. Inside a little wooden box lined with cloth lay the little girl. She was dressed in a white dress that was too big for her, her tiny white hands were folded across her chest, and her eyes were closed peacefully. Her wisps of silky blonde hair were hardly paler than her face. Her mother was so strong, Astrid realized, to have done all of this on her own and only now asking for her husband. She had to be utterly drained and empty on the inside.

"I'm so sorry, mom," she whispered, sinking to her knees and wrapping her arms around the larger woman. Yvla sat with the box in front of her on a skin, staring at it and repressing her cries. At her living daughter's touch, she let one loud wail escape her lips before a rush of words tumbled out, each one more heart-breaking than her sobs.

"Oh, Asta! She was so perfect, so little! So beautiful! I… I wanted to call her Solvi, if it was a girl. She was going to be so smart, and brave, and such a spitfire as Berk had never seen! She would have killed enough dragons to thatch the roof with their scales! She would…" Another sob cut off her mourning, this one quiet and repressed.

Astrid rubbed her mother's back and hugged her harder. "She would have been just like you. She would have been perfect."

Yvla wiped her eyes with the back of her hand roughly. "Oh, Asta-"

"She would have been," she cut her mother off, desperate to comfort her. "She would have been amazing. She would have been a little Valkyrie. And now she really is one. Can't you see her riding on one of Freya's horses, beautiful as the sun and sharp as a sword?"

"She was only a babe," Yvla moaned. "The dead are not honored without earning it."

"She _is_ a Hofferson," Astrid insisted. "Her line comes from the far south of the archipelago before the founding of Berk. Her blood sailed over waves unknown and into bitter cold and fought battles and beasts no one has ever seen the like of. Her lineage is one of honor! The gods won't fail to reward that."

Yvla, for the first and only time in her life, curled up against her daughter for comfort and wept. Astrid held her strongly, murmuring softly that it was alright, that little Solvi was alright, and most importantly, that it was not her fault. How long they remained like that, mother and daughter mourning the still child in the semi-darkness of the longhouse, Astrid could never afterwards remember. She only remembered that when he father came home late for the meal he had been grave and kind and broken and sent her outside while he wept with her mother. Some things, he said, were a husband's burden to bear.

She blinked in the sunshine, now fading as late morning rain began to threaten on the horizon. Her knees felt intolerably weak. The sight of her mother's face had twisted some deep knife wound of grief into her own heart, and she needed to take it out on something. She grabbed an old axe they used for chopping wood and headed off to the forest. She intended to kill trees, but if any living creature chose to cross her path, they'd most likely end up with a blade through them.

Just as she reached the treeline at the edge of the village, she registered someone calling her name. "Astrid!"

She turned, fuming, to see Hiccup running after her. He was carrying a small white and purple bundle in his left hand and panting with the effort of catching up with her. "Not now, Hiccup."

He looked taken aback. "I… we… you said we'd do our chores together after dagmál."

She actually almost pointed the axe at him. "I need to be alone."

He bit his lip, taking in her expression. "You wanna talk about it?"

He looked so caring, so hurt on her behalf. The whole village would know soon enough, and she had held in all her own pain while comforting her mom. She took one step towards him and almost hugged him when her brain registered what he was holding. " _What_ are those?" she demanded suspiciously.

He looked down at his hand as if he had forgotten them and flushed pink. "Uh, well, they're generally called flowers. Or weeds, if you're Mildew."

"Why do you have them?" she pressed, shifting her axe back to a defensive stance.

"Well…" he trailed off and held them out to her. His mouth formed a half-hearted smile, but his eyes were still bright with worry.

Astrid felt her stomach turn over. " _No_. Not you too. I thought you were better than that." She felt her blood boil at the thought that her friend - her _only_ friend, because all the other kids her age were either scared of their own shadow, crazy, or Jorgensons - would turn out to be just like _Snotlout_. Did growing up have to ruin everything?! She was in pain, she was dealing with the real world, and both of those stupid cousins had their stupid heads on backwards! He ought to know that she was more likely to skin him than court him, to court anyone! He had ruined everything about their friendship, and he had done it on the already worst day of her life.

Hiccup's eyes widened and he ducked clumsily. Her axe landed headfirst in the ground three feet to his left. She hadn't been aiming for him, but he understood the message. _Leave_. He turned, but not before courageously blurting out, "I'm sorry."

Astrid watched him go with a fire in her blue eyes. As far as she was concerned, he couldn't run fast enough.


	5. Nobody's Girl

Thank you to everyone who liked and followed my little series! I am surprised at how popular these little shorts are, especially given my lackluster ability to update! Here is another nice long glimpse into Astrid's life.

* * *

 **Nobody's Girl**

 _Thunk_! Her axe landed in the exact middle of the final dragon-shaped target. Astrid, covered in beads of sweat and arms shaking with fatigue, grinned widely. She lived for the moments when she knew she had been absolutely perfect. She straightened out of her throwing stance and turned to face her audience.

"Like Thor's own arm," Stoick Haddock approved. His arms were crossed and his eyes gleamed appraisingly. "Ye've a good eye for the next move, lass. Most only think of what they're doing now."

Her father said nothing, but clapped her on the back, hiding a grin behind his thick blond beard. He had promised not to embarrass her by exulting in front of the chief, but she could feel the pride rolling off him.

"Arvid, I am very pleased to have you as witness for this," Stoick rumbled, drawing his own heavy broadsword. He let the tip touch the ground and held the hilt in one hand. Without being told, Astrid wrapper her own comparatively small hand over his. "Astrid Arvidotter of clan Hofferson, as your chief, it gives me great pleasure to name you head of the Fire Brigade. You will be responsible for directing the training and coordination of the team, whether in time of peace, or under attack. Do you swear to me, in the presence of your people, to act honorably and bravely at all times, and to be willing to lay down your life to protect our village?"

"I swear, my chief," she replied proudly, tossing her head to get her wispy blonde bangs out of her eyes.

"Then seal your word with blood," he commanded, moving his free hand to lightly scrape the edge of his sword. She mimicked him, and the sharp metal drew a thin line of blood on both their hands. He clasped her bloodied hand over the pommel of the sword, making her oath one to die for before breaking faith. "I know," he added, with a very unofficial grin on his wise face, "you'll do your family proud."

"That she will," Arvid said, doing nothing to hide the glowing tears in his eyes. "Well done, Astrid."

She nodded, grinning and feeling like she could burst with happiness. "Thanks, dad."

Stoick straightened, releasing her hand, and sheathed his sword. "Vikings of Berk!" he raised his voice so the assembled village could hear him. "You have seen Astrid Hofferson fight, heard her pledge to me, and know her character. Do you pledge your children to fight under her?"

"Aye!" came the raucous cry, even from those whose children were too old or too young to be part of the Fire Brigade, the elite group of teens whose task it was to keep dragon fire from spreading during raids - a difficult and dangerous task, to say the least. At fifteen, Astrid was the youngest leader the Brigade had had in living memory.

"It is witnessed; let it be done!" Stoick cried in a mighty voice above the roar of the crowd, raising his arms in triumph. Astrid took in a deep breath, gazing out at the crowd that surrounded the training arena. Though it would be a year before she was allowed back in here to train to fight dragons, her test for today had to take place somewhere everyone could watch without getting hurt. The whole village had been assembled, partly for the feast that was to take place after the judgement and ceremony, and partly, Astrid suspected, to see a Frozen Hofferson fall on her face. The latter group would go home disappointed.

"Break out the ale!" someone called, and as quickly as the hoary, cheering crowd could move, they burst into the main village longhouse where the tables groaned under the weight of foods piled on them. The celebration was not for Astrid, necessarily - it was high summer, and there was always a feast at this time, provided Berk had the supplies to spare. Her achievement was an added source of mirth to the usual festivities.

"Well done, Astrid!" her eldest brother Argin crowed, sitting down heavily in the seat beside her. Like her father, he was built like an ox, and had the sunny blonde hair and bright blue eyes that were common in their family. "They'll call ya Fiesty Hofferson after this!"

"Aye, or Ferocious Hofferson?" the middle brother Bjorn laughed, lifting a mug of ale in Astrid's direction, saluting her. He was thinner and not so beefy as his brother and father, but he possessed broad shoulders and was clever with a sword.

"What about Flawless Hofferson?" Argin's wife Onion teased, offering the teen a hot damp rag to wipe her sweaty face with.

"Fearsome Hofferson," Arvid proclaimed, waving a huge joint of roasted mutton to emphasize his words. "She's Fearsome Hofferson, and one day you'll hear dragons scream it as they fly away!"

Everyone nearby laughed goodnaturedly. Of course dragons couldn't understand things like names. They were devils, evil malicious beasts, but still ultimately just dumb animals barely above the sheep they stole. For every Viking the winged monsters managed to kill, the blood of dozens of dragons was spilled.

Still, as Astrid thought to herself soberly - she had always been prone to keep her mind on serious things, even during a party - the dragons were more than clever enough to do real damage, and it had been getting steadily worse. Looking around the room at the gathered village, she could only see five possible recruits for her fire brigade: Snotlout, the twins, Fishlegs, and Hiccup. They were the only teens of this generation who had survived past the age of ten. She frowned sharply, thinking of how she should go about structuring the team. _I need to keep Snotlout focused on the job - not too hard if he thinks there's glory at the end of it. The twins can be motivated to stop the dragon's chaos if I tell them it makes their own craziness look tame. Fishlegs… I can make him more afraid of me than he is of the dragons. And Hiccup will be fine, if he can keep from doing anything crazy._ She let her gaze linger on Hiccup for a moment, the soft pang in her heart reminding her that he had ruined their friendship a little over two years ago and she had never yet found anyone she trusted so much. No one else remotely close to her age understood her, and she had stopped letting them try. To be open was to be vulnerable, and that was just asking for more awkwardness and hurt.

Hiccup seemed to feel her eyes on him; he lifted his gaze from his plate and gave her a half-hearted wave and smile. She kept her expression stern, nodded in recognition, and turned back to her family. She couldn't ignore him fully - she still remembered the good times too vivdly for that - but she had to make sure there were no chinks in her emotional armor. If she wanted to be the best, to continue restoring her clan's honor, she had to be above the slings and arrows of broken friendships.

* * *

"Noooooo, I've drunk ale befur now," Tuffnut drawled, stumbling across the pathway in the wrong direction. "I'm pacticurly a man." He tried to inflate his skinny chest, and the effect was comical.

"You have not," Ruffnut retorted in a muted, dreamy tone. She walked in a zig-zag around her brother, smiling stupidly. "Mom won't let you."

"Ugh, figures the one time your voice doesn't grate on my ears, you're drunk," Astrid grumbled, grabbing the twins by their ears and hauling them forward. She had caught them in the taproom having a go at a tub of mead - they must have slipped off during the celebration, and it wasn't hard to imagine them daring each other to drink far more than their young bodies could handle. "I'd tell you that you're in for a world of hurt, but you won't remember this tomorrow." Astrid pinched their ears to make them follow her instead of slogging off to the sides. "Come on, mutton heads."

"Are we going to see the Yak-Father?" Ruffnut asked, hiccuping dreamily.

"Yak-Fathur livesh with rainbowsh in the shkies," Tuffnut proclaimed, trying unsuccessfully to lift his arms in a dignified way while being led by the pulling on his ear.

Astrid shook her head as she led them outside, looking for a water trough. _I have a lot of work in front of me if I want to whip these two into fighting shape._ They stumbled down the steps leading from the Great Hall and to the nearest source of cold water: the rain barrels at Gobber's smithy. With no great difficulty, Astrid plunged both their heads in the water for a few seconds. Even at the height of Berk's summer, the water was unpleasantly cold, and they first shivered, then came up gasping for air.

"My heaaaaaad," Tuffnut groaned, collapsing in the ground.

"It'll hurt worse in the morning," Astrid told him, smiling with slightly malicious satisfaction.

"Not as worse as mine hurts!" Ruffnut whined, looking pathetic and wet as she lay on the ground.

"Go home when you've got your legs working again," Astrid instructed. She gave them a final warning glare until they both murmured agreement, then spun on her heel and headed back to the party. She wasn't about to miss the celebration because of a few stupid lightweights. But before she could make it even a dozen yards away from the smithy, she heard someone grunt in pain. A very familiar someone.

"And then Stoick just glows with pride as she swears her oath. Like he doesn't even remember that you exist," taunted another familiar voice. "Oh, that's right; he doesn't. Because you're Hiccup the _Useless_."

Astrid's mouth hardened into a line of determination and her eyes gleamed the blue of steel in the darkness. She broke into a controlled run and came around the corner to find Hiccup sprawled on the ground, hands over his head, and Snotlout standing over him. Neither noticed her until it was too late. A bigger Viking might have slammed Snotlout with their shoulder and knocked him down, but Astrid grabbed his collar and pulled his head down sharply, bringing her knee up to meet his face. There was a sharp _crack_ and the boy dropped to the ground limply. He had probably already had enough ale to make him sleepy, she decided, or he wouldn't have gone down that easily.

"Astrid?" Hiccup yelped, scrambling to his feet and trying to brush his clothes off. "Hi. I, uh, was just gettin' ready to pounce him."

She rolled her eyes and stepped over Snotlout, who was lying on the ground and muttering incoherently. "You need training, discipline, and exercise, Hiccup, but you're not useless."

His face reddened, showing she had read the situation properly. "I - I don't think I'm useless. I'm just waiting for the next dragon raid to prove them wrong."

She folded her arms across her chest. " _Them_?" she repeated. "Who is _them_?"

He shrugged wildly and indicated the village at large. "Snotlout, the fishing crews, my dad - you want me to keep going? The list is pretty extensive."

"Hiccup," she sighed, her desire to keep her safety walls up warring with old loyalties.

"I'm pretty sure I heard a sheep bleat 'useleeeeeeess' the other day," he continued sarcastically, even as real hurt flashed in his eyes.

Astrid decided to lower her defenses for just one second and help him. "Stop. Just stop. If you're going to be on my Fire Brigade, you have to stop thinking about what ham-fisted mutton heads like him," she lightly kicked at Snotlout, who started to rouse, "say about you. Do what I did: prove them wrong every day. Don't wait for the next dragon raid! Be diligent, disciplined, and follow orders, and I promise all of 'them' will figure out you're not useless."

Hiccup stared at her like she had grown a second head - or perhaps more like she was the sun bursting out of a stormcloud. "I'm going to be on the Fire Brigade?" he repeated incredulously.

She uncrossed her arms and put one hand on his shoulder in a strong gesture of friendship. "You're a Viking, Hiccup. You and I were born a little different, but we can both make them see we can be the best of them. Just be yourself. Your best, focused, not-running-off-to-see-something-shiny self," she added quickly.

Hiccup cleared his throat and started to say something, but his voice cracked, and he turned it into an embarrassed cough. Before he could try again, Snotlout sat up, and woozily demanded, "Useless, take your hands off my girl! You know I gave you Ruffnut."

Astrid's eyes narrowed dangerously as she let go of Hiccup and spun to face the beefy Jorgenson teen. "I am _not_ your girl," she spat, wishing she had her axe to drive the point home.

Snotlout shrugged and tried to stand up. He slipped on the gravel and sat back down in an undignified heap when the effort failed. "You don't have a lot of options, Astrid. It's either me, Tuffnut, or Useless. Fishlegs is too chicken to even count." With the blunt truthfulness that his tipsiness often brought out, he added, "We're the only guys, after all."

Her white-hot retort died on her lips. Snotlout, idiot Snotlout, was right. Berk's population was slowly being driven away or dying off. Only five teens on the entire island meant that when the time came for her family to choose her husband, she had extremely limited options. She had never really planned that far ahead, and now the reality of it shocked her like a blast of cold water. _Married to Fishlegs or Snotlout? I'd rather die,_ she shuddered, and in that moment, she made her decision. "Then I'll dedicate my life to Freya and be a virgin shieldmaid," she said firmly. "I'll be _nobody's_ girl."

Snotlout shook his head, attempting a smooth smolder and failing miserably. "Wait until I start courting you, babe. You'll be begging to hang out with me."

Astrid grimaced at the idea and turned her back on him to give a final encouragement to Hiccup. To her surprise, he looked even more crushed and hurt. He tried to cover by rambling. "A shieldmaid, huh? That's good. Yeah, you'll be great at that. Alone. Without anyone."

Her surprise morphed into disgust as she understood. "You still - How can - Ugh! Boys!" she shouted in frustration, throwing her hands up and walking away. Both cousins watched her go; one with slightly inebriated confidence and admiration, and the other with hopeless longing.


End file.
